


Secrets Revealed

by st_mick



Series: Niffler [32]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Torchwood
Genre: Finally on the mend, How Nifflers can sometimes get themselves into trouble, M/M, Mystery Explained, Resolution, old grudges
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 07:41:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20756771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_mick/pseuds/st_mick
Summary: With the curse broken, the team is able to treat Ianto's injuries.  He then sheds light on the reason for Wolverton's attack.  The Doctor offers his assistance, and Ianto is soon on the mend.Acknowledgement comes from an unexpected quarter...





	Secrets Revealed

Everyone was standing around the med-bay, watching the Doctor as he cradled Ianto’s head in his hands. So far, the Doctor had only spoken to tell them that Jack had found Ianto, and that they were making their way back towards their bond. They all grew tense as it seemed to take a very long time until the Doctor next spoke.

“They’re going to try…” he said, then shook his head. “No, it’s pulling Ianto back.” 

More silence. Then, “He’s trying to access more magic, through Jack. I think they’re going to try again.” Not ten seconds later, “Everyone, take cover!”

Very much like when Ianto fought the virus, a wave of magic exploded from him. But this time there was a lot more power behind it, and they did not have enough warning to cast shield charms. Everyone had crouched down with their arms over their heads, but they were still bowled over. Glass shattered all around them, the computers sparked and exploded, and then the power surged.

For a moment everything was dark before the emergency lighting kicked in. Once again, the wizards and witches were laughing, giddy from the magic that was still dissipating. Even the muggles could feel the happy, fizzing energy around them.

In the next moment, Ianto gasped back to life, sitting up and frantically calling out for Jack. “I lost him – where is he?”

Luna pulled him into her arms and held onto him, but he couldn’t calm himself. “Oh, Gods, what if he’s still trapped there?”

Martha discreetly pulled the knife from Jack’s chest, and she had only just managed to tape a bandage over the injury before Ianto turned that way, groping for Jack’s body. “Jack?”

Everyone winced when, heedless of his injuries, Ianto pulled Jack’s body into his arms and held onto him with what little strength he had. “Jack,” he pleaded.

“Ianto, please calm down. You need to give Jack a few minutes to revive,” Luna was up on the bed, hugging him from behind, running her hand over his head and trying to soothe him.

The Doctor reached out and touched the back of Ianto’s head, also trying to help calm him. “You gathered a lot of magic and vortex around you in order to break past the curse. It brought you back more violently than you are accustomed to. Take a few breaths and give yourself a moment to calm. Jack took steps to delay his resuscitation, so he’ll likely be a few more moments.”

“Steps?” Ianto turned blind eyes towards the Time Lord, and the latter actually took a step back at the expression in them.

“We’ll talk about that in a bit,” Luna soothed, shooting the Doctor an exasperated look. “While you calm yourself, perhaps the Doctor can check in with Jack, and give us some assurance that he isn’t trapped, now.”

The Doctor proceeded to do so, but before he could give them an update, Jack took a long, deep breath and returned to life.

“Jack,” Ianto cried, cradling his lover as the older man wakened.

“Ianto?” Jack was momentarily disorientated by the calming presence of his lover, combined with his voice being so damaged. But then he felt the terror along their bond, Ianto’s fear that Jack had exchanged places with him and had become trapped beneath the curse. “I’m fine, Love. I’m here, now. I’m so sorry.”

Jack looked around the hub and saw that it had not fared well against the surge of Ianto’s magic. Harry, Hermione, Donna, Mickey, and Toshiko were all working to put everything to rights, using spells to mend broken bits and straightening the rest. Bill did a few incantations, then assured everyone that Ianto was now free of the curse. Relieved, he went to look after Ron and Owen.

“Ianto, please lie down, now,” Luna begged, knowing that now that his fear had passed, the pain would set in.

Martha, anticipating this as well, managed to give him a very large dose of pain medication before he turned Jack loose. She assumed his pain level would be a ten, based on the exposed bones in his forearm, alone.

When Ianto reluctantly let go of Jack, the older man and Luna helped him to lie down. Jack could tell that Ianto was beginning to feel the pain, even as the meds began their work.

“Can’t believe that I splinched.” Ianto gasped.

“Well, you had just been stabbed several times with a cursed dagger, so I think we can make allowances,” Luna replied dryly. 

Draco had disapparated as soon as Ianto revived. He now apparated with several bottles of Dittany. “Let’s start to get this sorted, Nif,” he said, unwrapping Ianto’s arm. “Jack, hold onto him, please. This is going to hurt. Ready, Ianto?”

At Ianto’s nod, Draco began pouring Essence of Dittany onto the gaping wound where the muscle of his forearm used to be. Ianto screamed and pressed his face into Jack’s chest, attempting to endure the agonizing treatment and remain conscious.

Jack held onto him, trying to soothe him through the pain, but then he noticed that Ianto’s side was bleeding again. He was worried that Ianto had come back too soon again, and could feel him weakening as his earlier blood loss and the pain began to take their toll. This seemed to be confirmed when he passed out.

Martha came around the table and Jack reluctantly moved so she could start an IV in Ianto’s uninjured arm. She started with several units of his blood – Torchwood always kept its operatives’ blood on hand, for such emergencies.

Once the IV was started, she watched for a moment as Draco finished with the Dittany – he had done as much as he could, for one treatment. It would take several to completely heal Ianto’s arm. He looked up and asked her if she could bandage the arm loosely while he treated the stab wounds.

Several potions later, Ianto’s injuries were as healed as they could manage, with this first pass. Draco gave Ianto a potion for building his blood supply, and then he began assessing all of the original injuries in order to determine whether there had been any setbacks.

“He’s healing well,” Draco said. “Despite the additional injuries he’s sustained in the last couple of days, his original injuries are mending nicely. They’ll still pain him for another week or so, but by this time next week it will only be his arm, throat, lungs, and eyes.”

“Oh, is that all?” Martha snarked. Then she sighed. “Sorry.”

Draco shrugged. “As of right now, it’s every major organ system. I can’t even imagine how he managed to run, or to apparate, with the pain of his injuries, at their current stage of healing.”

“Never mind the trauma of everything that has happened,” Martha muttered. Unaware of the details and nature of Gwen’s attack, she was just considering the constructive wave, the virus, being throttled, and then stabbed.

“Why Janet?” Mickey wondered, setting the med-bay monitor back on the desk as Hermione repaired first it, then the CPU.

“He must have known she would protect him,” Jack said, holding Ianto’s hand and stroking his hair. He shook his head. “I can’t believe this happened.”

“Do we know what Wolverton was after?” Martha asked.

Everyone shook their heads, still baffled.

“I think Ianto might know,” Tosh said quietly from the top of the stairs. “He disabled the feeds, but the cameras continued to record.”

Knowing Jack would not wish to leave Ianto’s side, she brought her laptop down. As best they could, everyone crowded around, to watch. They saw Ianto locate the perception filter, and then it fell from his neck as Ron’s spell rendered it useless. They all hissed at the same moment when Ianto ran out of the archive corridor, headlong into Wolverton’s dagger.

“Bastard,” Jack gritted when Wolverton stabbed Ianto a second time. Then Ianto’s eyes flashed golden. “Gotcha,” he muttered triumphantly, even as Wolverton advanced on Ianto and stabbed him a third time.

They saw Ron apparate into the hallway with Owen, and then a ball of light exploded from Ianto, killing Wolverton and changing the shape of the vestibule. Then he staggered, straightened, and disapparated, leaving part of himself behind.

Toshiko changed to the camera in Janet’s cell. Ianto appeared, then fell to his knees. He quickly tore at his pyjamas and wrapped them around his arm and tried to staunch the blood seeping from the wounds in his side as Janet rearranged her bedding. She led him to the corner, then covered him with the straw. Then she shuffled through the straw where Ianto had bled, apparently trying to cover up the blood.

Within seconds, Owen was standing at the window, watching her. She snarled at him, clearly unnerved by the curse but just as clearly ready to defend her favorite food-bringer. Then Owen fell to Luna’s spell, and Toshiko stopped the playback.

“So now we just wait for Ianto to wake up, so we can find out what this was all about,” Jack huffed, returning to his lover’s side.

Just then, Theodophilus apparated into the hub. “What has happened?” he asked, seeing the others still in the process of setting the hub to rights.

Donna quickly told Theodophilus what had occurred, and he joined everyone in the med-bay. “Oh, Son,” he fretted. “How did this happen?”

“Owen and Ron were with him, but when Wolverton apparated in, he somehow simulated Mickey’s voice, calling out for their help, telling them that I was injured,” Tosh said angrily. “We should have called Donna in to cover, before we left on that retrieval.”

“And then she would have been cursed, as well, and Ianto may not have survived those odds,” Jack pointed out. “Don’t do that to yourself, Tosh. Second-guessing isn’t going to help.”

“But why did Ron leave the room? He should have known not to,” Bill said, joining them.

“He heard Owen cry out for help. The alarms hadn’t tripped, so he had no reason to believe it was other than what it seemed,” Tosh said sadly. “Wolverton managed to incapacitate both of them, with a spell. When he brought out his dagger and the curse touched them, that’s when your alarm sounded in Ianto’s recovery room, and he ran for the archives.”

“How are Owen and Ron?” Jack asked.

Bill nodded, then reached out and took Hermione’s hand. “I took them to St. Mungo’s. They’ll both be fine. The curse is broken. Wolverton’s death weakened it, so it wasn’t as difficult to break as the other one. They’ll be out for a day or two, but I expect them to fully recover.

Jack’s next words of thanks were cut off by a low moan from the bed. “He should definitely still be out,” Martha muttered.

“Don’t worry. He never does what he’s supposed to do,” Draco smiled. He headed for the bed, as well. He grabbed the lung and throat potions and administered them as Ianto spoke telepathically to Jack. 

With a look of consternation, Jack headed for his quarters and retrieved the item Ianto requested. Ianto held out his left hand, asking for help sitting up. Draco assisted him, and when Jack returned he sat behind Ianto, allowing the wizard to rest against his chest. Ianto rested his head back on Jack’s shoulder for a moment before raising it and taking a breath.

“You all know what I was, before I came to Hogwarts, and even the first few years I was there,” he sniffed.

“Nif,” Luna said, but he shook his head.

“It’s all right. I wouldn’t have survived, otherwise.” He tried to look around. “Taid?”

“I’m here, Son.”

“I’m sorry, I think this will be hardest for you to hear, because you don’t know about it, already. From the time I was about ten, I ran with Ewan Driscoll’s crew.” He waited for that to sink in, wondering what his grandfather’s reaction would be.

“I heard of Driscoll,” Theodophilus said, his eyes betraying a sadness he managed to keep from his voice. “His crew was the only gang at the time that wasn’t running guns, drugs, or girls.” He reached out and squeezed Ianto’s left hand. “As you said, you were trying to survive.”

Ianto sniffed, then nodded. “Picked up bad habits, I did. The Ministry, they were being idiots. And here we were, the handful of us, heading there to fight a bunch of Death Eaters. I knew the chances of us all surviving were… not good.”

“The Battle of the Department of Mysteries,” Bill said quietly.

Ianto nodded. “So I nicked a couple of things.” He waved the hand that Theodophilus had released. “Everyone knows about the time turner.” He rested against Jack again, and Luna offered him some water.

“We always figured you’d taken something else,” Harry muttered. “Was it something dangerous?”

Ianto shook his head. “Not in itself.” He turned his head. “Jack?”

Jack drew the well-loved object out of his pocket and placed it in Ianto’s hand.

“Your stopwatch?” Tosh asked, frowning. They had all seen it. Ianto seemed to always have it with him. And he and Jack seemed to have some sort of fetish around it that they all tried really hard to ignore, but whenever Ianto drew it out of his pocket, Jack would grin lasciviously.

“Wolverton’s stopwatch,” he corrected gently. “I didn’t realize. I always tried really hard not to steal from individuals. Figured the Ministry could do without a lousy stopwatch. Stupid, really. But then it became a thing.”

“A thing?” Theodophilus asked, frowning.

“It survived the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. Then it survived all of our little skirmishes that year we hid in the Room of Requirement. Then the Battle of Hogwarts. By then I kept it with me, all the time, as a good luck token. But then it survived Canary Wharf. And the night Lisa finally…” he sniffed again, and took another drink. “Then cannibals. And the Year.”

The Doctor looked at him sharply. “What do you know of the Year?”

“We all remember it, Doctor,” Luna said sadly, and the others nodded. The Doctor, who remembered well what the Master had done to Ianto, looked horrified.

“The Master stole it from me, the bastard. Used it for his games…” he choked. “But when time reset, there it was, back in my pocket. It survived the Salem 2000 and the constructive wave…” He shook his head. “I thought that maybe, at some point, I’d paid for it, in blood alone. But apparently not.”

“You’re saying that Wolverton was willing to curse and kill… for a stopwatch?” Hermione looked dubious. “Then why wait a decade?”

“He wasn’t sure I had it. I’d put spells on it to keep it hidden, like the time turner, so he couldn’t find it by searching. Plus I always had it on me. But he suspected. I was the only one of us that was a likely candidate, after all. So he…” he choked again.

Jack wrapped his arm around Ianto and kissed his neck. This seemed to lend the wizard strength to keep speaking. He took a deep breath. “He funded and armed the gang that took out Driscoll and his crew,” he said quietly.

“What?” Jack asked, shocked.

“He didn’t realize I had stepped away from the crew. He was livid when he found out that I was one of only a handful that survived...”

“Oh, Ifan.”

“Driscoll only ever protected me,” Ianto said, tears falling. “And now I find out that he died, because of me.”

“No, he died because Wolverton was some sort of psychopath,” Toshiko said hotly. “I mean, he did _that_, for a stopwatch?”

“Not just that,” Ianto said. “It’s like we suspected. He was behind the protests against me using the rifle during the Battle of Hogwarts. He tried to block me from becoming an Auror, but Kingsley held firm, on that. So he lobbied for me to be assigned to Torchwood, because he knew the average lifespan of a Torchwood operative.”

“Wait. He went from indirectly homicidal to subtly patient,” Hermione said. “Why?”

“It had only been a year, and he was still paranoid I’d figure out his secret, when he set up Driscoll. By the time I got the Torchwood assignment, he had faith that his spells would hold, and that I’d die before I figured out his secret. From there he was just peeved, so he set out to cause trouble for me in any way he could. His stance after Canary Wharf, fighting Kingsley’s decision to let me carry my wand again,” he nodded towards Luna when she gasped in outrage at that detail, “even giving up the location of the hub to a civilian. That’s the bit where he went too far, though.”

He slumped back against Jack and took another drink of water.

“So now he’s gone for the direct approach. Why?” Mickey asked. “What changed?”

“He didn’t think the backlash would be so strong for taking that bribe and disclosing the location of the hub. So he was annoyed at having to uproot. Then he was angry that I survived the Earth moving. Rationality was no longer his friend, by that point, and he was absolutely tamping that I survived the 4-5-6. That was the last straw, so he decided to do something about it.”

“He knew you were injured,” Jack guessed.

“Yes, he still had contacts within the Ministry.”

“Names?” Harry asked. They were going to clean house, over this, and no mistake.

Ianto gave him the names, then said, “He decided to move against me. As I said, he was far from rational, and he missed his trophies. Wanted them back.”

“Trophies?” Martha asked.

Jack groaned.

Ianto continued, “There’s a charm on the stopwatch that makes it seem like it’s just a stopwatch. I never questioned it. I mean, who would? I never expected it to be anything other than it was.” He held out the stopwatch. “Can someone break it?”

Hermione reached out with her wand and broke the charm. Ianto turned it over in his hand. “Now ask it to tell us its secrets.”

They all stared at Ianto, for a moment. They had forgotten that spells were more conversational, for him. In his fatigued state, he spoke of the conversation rather than the spell, itself. Giving herself a shake, Hermione once more reached out to cast the appropriate spell.

“Brace yourselves,” Ianto warned. “It’s not pretty.”

The stopwatch, as it turned out, was a memory keeper. It held the final memories of seven women, as well as Wolverton’s memories of murdering them. Ianto turned his head into Jack’s neck, not needing to hear the memories. He now had them in perfect recall, having read Wolverton.

“A serial killer,” Tosh said, her voice hushed.

“Those are all open cases,” Harry muttered.

“As are the other seventeen,” Ianto said raggedly.

“What?”

“He’s got a pocket watch on him. It’s got the rest. You’re about to clear a lot of cold crimes, Harry.”

Hermione was already dragging Wolverton out of the cooler and searching his pockets. “Got it,” she said, holding up the watch.

“Please, don’t make me listen. It was bad enough, seeing,” Ianto whispered.

“You saw it all, when you read him?” Hermione looked ill.

Ianto nodded, looking miserable.

The Doctor stepped forward. “Ianto, there is something I would like to do for you, but I can only do so with your permission.”

Ianto turned towards the Doctor’s voice. “What?”

“I can soften these memories. Everything you learned today from Wolverton. You’ll still know it, still be aware of it. But it will not be so harsh in your mind, it won’t be so traumatic. And I can do the same for yesterday’s assault.” The Doctor sighed. “I cannot make it go away, and I don’t think you’d want me to. You have spells for that, but I doubt you would wish to have no memory of these things. But to remember, without as much of the pain…”

“Why would you not do that for every traumatic memory?” Ianto wondered, thinking more of the Doctor’s friends (including Jack) than himself.

The Doctor stared, fascinated by Ianto’s turn of mind. “Because it would eventually make the person numb, and that’s not life. But right now, in the interest of your healing, I don’t know that remembering twenty-four murders in all of their perfect detail would help you live any more fully.”

“Twenty-six,” Ianto quietly corrected, and Jack kissed his temple. He nodded to the others to leave them. Only the Doctor, Theodophilus, Luna, and Draco remained.

“Twenty-six,” the Doctor repeated, realizing that Wolverton was responsible for murdering Ianto, quite brutally, twice in the last twenty-four hours. “If I thought this was against your best interest, I would not suggest it.”

“I’ll still remember it all?” Ianto asked.

“Yes. But it will feel like an old memory rather than something that’s fresh and raw.”

“What’s the downside?”

The Doctor looked at Jack, who smiled and kissed Ianto again. He frowned. “Downside?”

Ianto drank a bit more water. “Like the _obliviate_ spell. You can get rid of the memories, but not the emotions. So you end up with emotions and don’t know where they came from and PTSD for no particular reason. It can make things difficult,” he finished, remembering the aftermath of the incident on Mount Snowden.

“But you will remember it,” the Doctor reassured him. He thought for a moment. “The Battle of the Department of Mysteries,” he said. “You remember it, yes?”

Ianto nodded. “I do, in startling detail. But it’s no longer as harsh a memory, as it once was.”

“That is what I’m proposing,” the Doctor smiled. “To make the memories less harsh. And the memories of Wolverton’s murders, I can make very muddy, if you’d like. I don’t think there is any benefit to you or your quality of life to remember the specifics. You’ll still know _about _them, just not in such detail.”

Ianto nodded. He was still thinking it through when Luna spoke up.

“Would you want to muddy the memory of what happened yesterday?” she asked delicately.

“How do you know about that?” Theodophilus asked.

“Seer,” she muttered, looking at her feet. Her gift was sometimes a curse, when she saw such things, particularly happening to her friends.

Ianto had spent some time the night before pondering that same question. “I don’t know, Luna,” he said thoughtfully. “I mean, I don’t _want_ to remember it, but I worry Jack will reach for me and I’ll have some sort of PTSD response, and then that will put Jack in the position of having to lie to me about it. I don’t want that.”

Jack closed his eyes against the tears that threatened and held Ianto closer.

“Plus, I’m not certain we _can_ lie to one another, anymore,” he added.

Jack raised his head and looked at Ianto. He realized that his lover was probably right. While they would both always respect one another’s privacy, the bond would likely give them away, if one tried to deliberately deceive the other.

“But you wouldn’t forget _what_ happened,” Luna pointed out, raising a questioning eyebrow at the Doctor. At his nod, she continued, “You would just be really fuzzy on the details.”

“And like the _obliviate_ spell, those details would no longer be accessible to the subconscious, for nightmare fodder,” the Doctor added.

“I’m not hearing any potential downside,” Ianto admitted.

“Well,” Draco drawled, sounding just a bit like his old self. “You’d be likely to forgive much more quickly.”

The Doctor frowned at the pale haired wizard. “Is that a bad thing?”

Ianto made a croaking noise that it pained everyone to realize was a laugh. “Draco knows that I always forgive, eventually. But he says that I enjoy holding a grudge, until I get around to the forgiveness bit.”

Draco grinned. “You should think really hard before limiting the little joys in life, don’t you think?”

They all chuckled, and the somber mood was broken.

“I don’t think it would be fair to hold a grudge, this time,” Ianto said quietly.

“But Ianto, she…” Luna trailed off when he held out a hand to her. When she took it, he spoke.

“Luna, I need to see it the same way I see how Ron and Owen behaved. They would have killed me, if they had laid hands on me. I know this. But I also know that it was the curse, not them. Just because she succeeded, and managed to add in a bit extra…” he released her hand and waved it, trying to express something he wasn’t willing to articulate, “…doesn’t mean she had any more control of her actions than they did.”

“I know,” Lune whispered. “I just hate it that…” she did not wish to speak it, either. Words would give it power, at this moment, and she could tell Ianto was doing his best not to let that happen.

“So do I,” he whispered. He closed his eyes and leaned against Jack. _I know what they’re all thinking. They think she raped me. Did she?_

Jack went very still. He knew this would be a very important conversation, and it was extremely important that he didn’t lead Ianto to his conclusions. _What do you think?_

_Well, they say it isn’t rape, if there’s no penetration. _Ianto opened his eyes and looked at Jack, and for a moment it seemed as though he could see. _There wasn’t, by the way._

Jack nodded. _That is what they say,_ he replied neutrally_. _

_Definitely sexual assault, though,_ Ianto nodded, closing his eyes wearily_. She used my body for her sexual gratification, without my consent. _

_You’re equivocating,_ Jack admonished_._

Ianto startled, slightly. _What?_

_You’re quibbling over what to call it, to avoid the issue_.

Ianto was well aware of this. And he knew that Jack knew this was part of his process. What he wasn’t used to was Jack calling bullshit on him, when he did it. _Bet you didn’t expect your new training to come in handy so soon, _he chuckled.

The broken sound hurt Jack’s heart. He stayed silent, knowing Ianto was working his way around to his dilemma.

_It wasn’t her, Jack. I know it wasn’t. It was the curse. But… _He gave a small sob and Jack kissed his cheek, pressing the wizard’s head into his neck, knowing that a good nuzzle would calm him. Ianto took a deep breath. _Gods, Jack, what do I do?_

_I can’t tell you what to do, Ianto. I can say that my nightmares of the men who raped me on the _Valiant_ haunted me until I knew they had been locked up. _

Ianto immediately stiffened and tried to pull away. _Jack, I’m so sorry. I… I know this isn’t the same as what you went through. _

Jack refused to loosen his hold on Ianto. _No, it’s worse. A trusted co-worker attacked you, sexually assaulted you, and murdered you. What happened to me didn’t have that element of betrayal. And if Gwen doesn’t even remember attacking you, then I don’t know how you’ll find the kind of closure I was able to get._

Ianto sighed. _I’m not sure closure is an option. It will always be her face I remember, doing that. And that’s not fair to her, because she was forced, as much as I was. She never would have done that, without the curse bringing out her own shadow._

_If you choose to remember it all, will you still be able to work with her?_

Ianto knew what Jack was offering. He could keep his memory and Jack would willingly Retcon and relocate both Gwen and Rhys. In that moment, he loved Jack for being willing to protect him, in that way. But it didn’t feel right.

_If I choose not to remember it all, will you all still be able to work with her?_

Jack tried not to smile at Ianto’s thought process. No stone unturned. _We’ve all had enough experience with alien possession and such that I think we can get past it. But we’ll follow your lead. You’re the most forgiving man I know, and that’s saying a lot, because I know the Doctor. But Luna’s right. This could be different, because it plays off of your fears around losing control._

_The illusion of control, _Ianto corrected him, part of him pleased that Jack recognized the reappearance of his old fear. Ianto shook his head. _That’s not it._

_Is it forgetting? Because you really won’t. The Doctor… _Jack hesitated. _He softened some of my memories, from the Year. _

Ianto seemed to take this in. _I was worried that he might be offering something to me that he hadn’t offered to you. That would have been upsetting._

Jack chuckled. _Always thinking of me. My Love, you need to think of yourself, this once. What will be best for you?_

_What did he soften, for you?_

Jack shuddered. _There were a couple of deaths that were especially… And the days that the four of you…_

Ianto sniffed. _I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair. I should have just asked, how has it worked, for you?_

_I still remember them, but they don’t… hurt… quite as badly._

_Would you do it again?_

Jack gave it some thought. There were memories that he had not asked the Doctor to soften, that haunted him, and stalked his nightmares, now. He could tell by the contrast between those and the memories that the Doctor did soften that the difference was vast. 

_Yes._

_I’m afraid, _it was almost whisper-quiet, that confession.

_Of what, Love?_

_That even if I do this, it will still haunt… us._

Jack smiled. _You saw. You remember what happened to me. Has it haunted us?_

There was a time when Ianto might have said something stupid, like, ‘But I’m not like you, Jack,’ or ‘These things don’t seem to bother you as much, Jack.’ Now, of course, he knew that neither of those statements was true. Jack was just as hurt by his traumas as anyone, and his heart was far more tender than people realized. So his question gave Ianto hope. _No. It hasn’t._

_And it won’t. And when you’re ready, I’ll prove it to you._

Ianto smiled. _One more question._

_Yes?_

_Can I brush my teeth?_

Jack burst out laughing. The others had wandered off when they realized that Jack and Ianto were having a conversation. Now they looked over to Jack, who asked for a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a small basin.

Ianto could only taste blood and death, and the nasty slime of the remnants of the curse. His arm was not healed enough, so he let Jack help him brush his teeth. It felt particularly intimate to have Jack do this for him. He realized that he did not feel helpless and alone, in the dark. He felt loved and cared for as Jack cautiously helped him to brush away the remnants of the horrible death he’d endured. The others simply watched, overcome by Jack’s gentle care and encouragement.

Ianto rinsed his mouth and spat into the basin, then Jack wiped his chin with a towel before handing the basin and toothbrush to Draco. In the next moment, Ianto was kissing Jack with an enthusiasm that belied his condition.

“All right, enough of that,” the Doctor said, amused. “What have you decided?”

“I want what you suggested,” Ianto rasped. “Soften the last two days, and muddy the details of Wolverton’s murders of those women,” he hesitated, and everyone pretended not to hold their breaths, “and of Gwen’s attack.” He tried to clear his throat, but clearly that was extremely painful. “Please,” he added.

“Time for another potion, I think,” Draco brought over a bottle that had a calming potion and a potion for Ianto’s throat.

“You’ll likely fall into a deep sleep when I finish, so is there anything else you need?” The Doctor looked to Martha, who was coming back down the stairs. “Food? More pain medication?”

She looked at her watch, surprised. “It is almost time for his pain meds,” she said.

Draco administered the lung potion, and Martha asked for a number. They were relieved that it was down to a seven, though Jack suspected Ianto was trying to spare them. He gestured to Martha to consider that an eight.

Ianto balked at the mention of food, so once the medication was administered, Jack helped him to lie back down. Luna brought the sleep mask, and the Doctor was able to soften Ianto’s memories fairly quickly. Once Ianto was asleep, Draco, Luna and Theodophilus joined the cleanup effort in the hub. The Doctor said his farewells, and once the TARDIS was gone, Jack undressed and joined Ianto in the bed.

***

Thanks to the Doctor’s subliminal suggestion as he finished softening Ianto’s memories, Ianto slept for more than thirty-six hours, straight. Martha provided fluids and nutrients through the IV, and she administered a moderate dose of the painkillers at regular intervals so Ianto would not wake up in agony. 

When he did wake, he was immediately subjected to all of the potions and painkillers that Martha and Draco could devise, and then Draco applied more Dittany to his forearm.

Ianto counted it a win that he didn’t pass out, this time.

He wanted a shower, but he was so exhausted that he wrapped himself around Jack and went back to sleep as soon as they fed him. He followed a similar pattern for the next few days. Most of his nutrients and fluids were coming from the IV, but they would wake him every few hours to get him to eat. He was finally sleeping, due in no small part to the relief of having Jack there with him. Feeling safe and protected, he was able to achieve the deep and restorative sleep that his healing required.

A week after Wolverton broke into the hub, Ianto finally woke for a few hours together. Jack reached out to Draco, who brought Luna and Harry with him to visit. Ianto still could not see, but as Draco had predicted, he was pretty much healed from the constructive wave ordeal. His side was also healed, though the scars would take a few years to fade. He would count himself lucky, considering the fact that scars from curses (like Harry’s lightning bolt-shaped scar) seldom healed or faded, completely.

His forearm was still healing. It had been a fairly severe splinch, and daily doses of Dittany were slowly restoring the muscle. It would likely take a few more days to heal. It was still painful, as were his throat and neck. The bruising was still quite spectacular, and Jack could hardly look at it without shuddering.

Gwen had awakened the day after the Doctor left. As expected, she remembered nothing of what happened, from the time she opened the shipping box until she woke up at St. Mungo’s with Rhys by her side. She was told about Wolverton, and that she had touched a cursed object that had caused her to kill Ianto. She was given no further details, and the others had been instructed to give her none. Toshiko had even deleted all video footage of the attack, so neither Gwen nor Ianto could stumble upon it.

From the moment of her arrival back in the hub, she seemed filled with remorse. The witches and wizards at St. Mungo’s had verified that her memory was blank, and this was later corroborated by the fact that neither Owen nor Ron (who both woke up the following day) remembered anything of what had happened.

During their visit, Harry told them that they had been able to use the memory keepers to clear all twenty-four murders. “Serial killers are very rare, in the wizarding world,” Harry explained to those gathered around the bed in Ianto’s recovery room. They had moved him there when they realized he was finally sleeping properly.

“Why is that?” Toshiko wondered, curious.

Harry shrugged, then grinned. “Normally too showy.”

***

Theodophilus insisted on bringing Ianto home to continue his recuperation. Draco promised to bring Owen to check up on him, and Jack would be there to administer pain medication, so they moved him that afternoon.

Ianto was relieved that Jack had agreed to stay with him, at least at night. He still slept best when Jack was with him, though he had learned to make a decent go of it, when Jack was working. But still blind, and in a new location, he was relieved for the extra support.

He had been at his grandfather’s house for two days when Draco declared his arm to be healed.

“That is astounding,” Harriet said, her voice full of wonder. She had taken to bringing Ianto his morning tea after Alun apparated Jack to the hub to work.

A few minutes later, Jack bounded into the room, having returned almost as soon as he’d left. “I just realized,” he smiled and leaned over to kiss Ianto. “It’s been three weeks,” he said, referring to Thames House.

“Feels like three months,” Ianto said. He was surprised it had only been three weeks. They had been, for the most part, excruciating and grueling. And terrifying. But now he was feeling much better. He could finally draw a decent breath, and while Draco expected he’d need another week-long course of the lung potion, he could tell he was almost completely mended. 

His voice still sounded damaged, but Jack had told him that the bruises on his neck were finally fading. He had begun to distinguish vague shapes, though really he could only mostly tell light from dark, but Draco said his eyes were healing nicely, if a bit more slowly than everything else.

He was still sleeping a great deal, but Harriet and Theodophilus had him walking every few hours, and he was slowly regaining his strength.

“There was a message on your phone,” Jack began, and Ianto heard the hesitation in his voice. “But I have to tell you a few things before you listen to it.”

Theodophilus joined them as Jack told him that Lois Habiba had leaked footage of them confronting the alien at Thames House. “It was one of the stand-alone cameras. There wasn’t a feed, but it did cut out when Tosh cut the power source to the others. Tosh thinks she smuggled the camera in, and then manually retrieved the footage. Makes sense, because it was a weird angle. Just caught our shoulder blades and heads.”

“Which means your coat wasn’t necessarily recognizable,” Ianto said in relief.

“She only released the part where I was talking about philosophy and then you said, ‘you're not getting one solitary, single child’. That was really sexy, by the way,” he grinned and leaned in to quickly kiss Ianto, who had become used to (and secretly rather enjoyed) the sneak attack kisses.

“News authorities were describing us as the heroes of the hour,” Jack grinned again, knowing that if his eyes didn’t still hurt, Ianto would be rolling them. 

“Has Tosh gone after the footage?”

“Yeah, but it kind of went viral before she could grab it. Everyone’s wondering who we are. Then Lizzie weighed in, saying that clandestine agencies work much better if they can stay that way, so everyone should understand that we aren’t going to come forward, and they really need to stop this nonsense, because you were critically injured fighting the aliens, and need to recover in peace.”

Ianto groaned, and Jack laughed.

“She asked that everyone pray for your speedy recovery.”

“How kind,” Harriet said, smiling.

“But a bit less than clandestine,” Ianto pointed out. Jack saw the small smile, though. He knew Ianto was fond of Lizzie, and appreciated her concern.

“The press thought they recognized our accents,” Jack added, and Ianto could hear the grin in his voice. 

“So they think you’re American. Did they peg me as Scottish, do you think?” Ianto asked sweetly.

“Nope. They asked the Queen what your name was.”

“She didn’t,” Ianto said, hearing Jack holding back laughter.

“She invited them to find a man called Jones in Wales.”

They all laughed, but Ianto felt uneasy. “So what’s this message?”

Jack held out the phone and punched in the code. “Aye aye, Ianto, son,” Johnny Davies’ voice filled the room. “Saw you on the television, telling off those ugly aliens. Should’ve known you were up to some serious shit, after what happened to your Lisa and seeing you driving around in that fancy so-called company car with ‘Torchwood’ written all over it. But I just didn’t really think, you know? Your sister, she was in a right mood, so I didn’t really take a moment, to put it all together.

“There were a few who wondered if that were you, but put your mind at ease that not a one of us would ever sell out one of our own to those twat English journalists. Especially one of our own, that stood up to the aliens and kept our kids safe.

“The Queen – and ain’t that a bloody kick in the head, the Queen talking about you – but anyway, the Queen said you were hurt. I’ve been trying to get you since the news showed that clip of you a few days ago, but there’s no answer, and I hope you’re all right.

“Look, I just wanted to say, I’m sorry Rhi’s being so tetchy, but you know, that’s her way. But I saw you, and I know what you did. And _I_ wanted to say, thank you for saving my kids, Ianto. That’s… yeah, that’s all.”

The message ended, and Theodophilus pulled out a handkerchief. It hurt that his granddaughter was so hard-hearted towards his grandson, but at least someone had recognized what Ianto had done.

Jack sat on the bed beside Ianto. “Good message, right?”

Ianto nodded, then sniffed. He wasn’t quite sure why it meant so much that Johnny had left that message, but somehow it made up for Rhi’s unpleasant attitude.

“Hey,” Jack pulled Ianto into his arms. “I’m sorry, should I not have…”

“No, it’s fine,” Ianto huffed. “I’m sorry. I’m still a mess, is all,” he said, self-conscious about how emotional he had been during his recovery.

Jack kissed him and whispered sweet things in his ear until he was smiling again.

“This will blow over,” Harriet assured them. “Your face couldn’t really be seen, and the videos have ‘mysteriously disappeared’ from every server they had been stored on.” Ianto could almost see Harriet making air quotes, and it made him chuckle.

“Would you care for a walk, my dear?” Theodophilus asked Harriet.

“That would be lovely,” she replied.

“I’ll check in tomorrow,” Draco clapped Ianto on the shoulder, then shook Jack’s hand before disapparating.

“They left in a hurry,” Ianto remarked. “Did you start undressing in front of them again?”

In the next moment, a naked Jack was curled up next to Ianto. He chuckled at Ianto’s feigned outrage. “You know I undress quickly,” Jack said. “All I did was drop my braces.”

“Yes, and they know how quickly you undress, too. They probably consider themselves lucky that they got out before you mmf,” the rest of his sentence was cut off with a very lovely kiss.

In no time at all, Ianto’s vest and pyjama bottoms were gone and Jack had draped his body over Ianto’s, holding him close. “I love how perfectly we fit,” he murmured, giving Ianto a squeeze.

He was delighted to hear his kitten purr for the first time in twenty-five days.

Not that he’d been counting…

***

**Author's Note:**

> Another terrible summary, but hopefully you'll forgive me. FINALLY finished this story arc! Yay!
> 
> Ianto's gone quiet for what happens next, but in the meantime, he's been very chatty on prequel material. I'll try to figure out how to link up the two series...
> 
> Hope you enjoy the conclusion to this story arc - thanks for reading! Kudo and comment if you liked it. :)


End file.
